Roblex

yes I have finally got our little website finished Started!

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Don’t get excited the title’s nothing to do with the tweenies or the band. It’s the place I rode to after leaving Osterburg. Today’s cycle was a bit of a strange one. I was happily riding along a nicely paved cycle path when it turned off into a small villagey area which then lead me to a wooded area. There was a sign that said R1 cycle route and the merest suggestion of a track in the dirt. I decided to chance it as I didn’t want to go on the alternative route (a busy road) and set of on the bumpy uneven ground.

The bike was busily shaking itself apart as I rode along but I was happy to at least be traveling in the right direction away from the traffic. It’s times like this that I realise how essential the GPS is. The sign posts for the R1 cycle route were, as is often the case, erratic in their appearance.That is to say you’ll have 2 signs in close proximity telling you your on the R1 cycle route when there haven’t been any turnings. Then you get to a T junction and there’s no sign. A quick check of the GPS tells you which way to go. Super.

Then it began to rain. Now I’m not averse to contact with a little rain I just prefer not to be in a field on a bike that was built for city commuting when it happens. But a quick press on the utility belt and my TP-pac-a-mac-5000 fired into action and I donned my bobble hat to keep my hair looking salon fresh.

I came to a T junction and surprisingly there was no sign to tell me which way I should be going. No problem I’ll check the GPS… Right straight ahead then is it? hmmm. So I guessed the right path looked marginally bigger and hoped I wasn’t going to have to back track. And it continued to rain. But then I had a sudden epiphany. I realised I was having the most fun I’d had in days. I was in the middle of Germany. I was having an adventure. What a cheeser.

Eventually I ran out of muddy tracks and found myself back on a nasty road (this time in the rain) I’d lost my back light and it was a bit grey due to the bad weather. Admittedly my mood dipped a little as it was also getting a bit late. But the road didn’t last for long and the cycle paths reappeared soon enough and Milow was well sign posted.

Milow is a pretty small place but not without a certain charm. Although I was happy to have got there I had a familiar feeling of unease. I was caked in mud that was beginning to dry now that the rain had stopped and I was unsure if there were any beds at the hostel. The hostel was run by a guy who spoke only a little English and was a little manic. I managed to establish that there was a room through some students that were able to translate pretty well (including the joke he made about me having to do some work). After pealing off my muddy clothes and changing I went down for dinner which was a nice barbeque courtesy of the manic chef.

Then I slept… very very very soundly.

Another day another busy road. It’s times like this I wished I’d actually brought a cycle map. I’m sure that somewhere not so far away from the roads I’m on is a pleasant little route that runs along streams and rivers and has a disney-esque array of cute animals to keep you company. When I write these diaries I imagine some seasoned long distance cyclists reading them and shaking their heads at my abysmal choice of route.

Once I got fairly close to Osterburg things started to get a little easier as I was going through small villages rather than along busy roads. By this point in the journey my little bike was beginning to feel the strain; the right peddle required tightening more often and the chain had begun to slip every now and then. As I have mentioned in earlier posts I’m not the most savvy person when it comes to bikes (some would end that sentence at ‘person’) and my solution to a slipping chain involved squirting more oil on it while using some colourful language.

I was busy pretending like I new what I was doing with the chain in one of these small villages when 3 german kids came up to me obviously impressed with ‘the pig’. They found it incredibly funny that I couldn’t understand what they were saying, and I have to admit in spite of my run of ‘challenging’ days I managed to crack a smile as well. I was able to tell them where I was going (osterburg’s not too hard to pronounce) but I’m not sure I communicated where I was from quite so effectively.

I regret not staying to chat longer with them, perhaps showing them my maps to give them an idea of how far I’d traveled. I was still pretty pent up what with the traffic and the fact that I was running late. I just feel that not allowing myself to enjoy the situation more was missing the point of the trip a little. Still they made my day and hopefully the feeling was mutual.

By the time I got to Osterburg the fact that I’d been keeping myself well hydrated was beginning to make it’s presence known (translation: I was dieing for a pee!). For once I had the Tourist office marked on my GPS and thought it would be fairly easy to navigate to it. But, due to some tall buildings I was having trouble keeping a signal. It’s a funny thing riding around navigating by a device on your handle bars because unlike holding a map you don’t give any signal of what your doing to onlookers. So to spectators it just looks like I’m riding around in circles for the fun of it. Add the fact that my facial expression is getting a little contorted due to the fullness of my bladder and you get a most amusing spectacle.

I think when your vision is beginning to blur as a result of needing to relieve yourself it’s time to ask for directions. Which I did. The 2 guys I asked had been watching me peddle around the same spot of pavement for the last 10 minutes and I’m still not sure if they actually took pleasure in telling me that the office was closed.
I decided that a WC was more important than a room at this point and decided to look for one of those first. As luck would have it within minutes of starting my search I found both. It was a nice little room above a bakery which was about the same price as a hostel room. So the day ended with me raiding the mini bar (1 beer 1 apple juice 2 chocolate bars and a large bag of crisps), making a rambling video diary and drifting off to sleep.

Today brought the unwelcome return of Busy roads and no cycle paths. Only more so. I’m big enough to admit I was scared. Admitedly although the lorries were speeding along at breakneck speeds, they were very accomodating of the weird brit on a circus bike that had no place to be there. But no matter how much room they gave me they were still huge scary chunks of metal.

Riding to Uelzen was pretty easy going and uneventful and I’ve just realised how that gives me nothing to make smart remarks about. hmmm. Well the scenery was more glorious woodlands but they lose their novelty after the first hundred miles or so. The hostel was of a good standard and as has often been the case I got the room to myself (in an 8 bed dorm this time).

um… well that’s all for this day. lets hope things go wrong in future or these diary entries will be a bit dry.

PS yes that title is misleading.

OK I new I hadn’t posted anything for a while but I didn’t realise the diary was only up to Bremen!

Um… where to begin? Well after a conversation with the hostel owner I was debating whether to head along the river cycle path or go to the place I’d picked at random, the rather unapealing sounding Rotenburg. I plumped for Rotenburg as it was more of a direct route, but I was still turning it over in my mind as I came to the cross roads. Then I realised I’d left my waterproof behind. Luckily I’d only cycled 4 miles (that’s sarcasm by the way folks).
So I took this as a sign and decided to take the other route to avoid cycling back over the same ground.

Things were going well and it made a nice change to be cycling next to a river rather than a road. Then I lost the river. Now I lose things all the time but losing a river is a first even for me. So I ended up having a bit of a horrible cycle on some busy roads (sometimes without cycle paths).

Once I found the Hostel it had no beds free and I had to pay for almost double for a hotel room which lacked anything vaguely resembling charm. Maybe I should have gone to Rotenburg after all…

The next day was easier and I got to Bad Fallingbostel in good time only to find that the hostel was closed. Luckily there was a helpful sign with 3 other hostel numbers to try. Not so helpfully they were all closed as well.
I got to the tourist information office and found it wasn’t an office at all. unless you class a wooden board with information on it an office. In which case you’re probably an easy employee to accomodate.

The board was pretty comprehensive, having the addresses of different types of accomodation types (four star hotels to rooms in peoples houses) and also had a map of where they were. This was great apart from the fact I had no pen and had to commit the names of the streets to memory. The large map and attatched wooden board proved immovable and even if I could have taken it with me, cycling with an 8 ft by 6 ft sign would have been problamatic.

So I spent the next 2 hours cyling around and using the credit on my phone to successfully not find a place to stay. I saw one last sign saying “zimmer frie” (room available) but wasn’t hopeful and when I asked the guy he said that no there wasn’t a room. I was used to this reponse and was about to leave when he elaborated “there’s a party it will be a little bit loud” I advised him that I could sleep through an earthquake and the deal was done.
Anyway the room was fantastic, about the same price as a hostel and when I came back from town I was plied with free beer at the party. So not such a bad end to the day!
Anyway I’m running low on internet time so sorry this hasn’t been the most exciting entry but I’m tired, I’m playing catch up and writing from memory (which with a memory like mine is nigh on impossible.)

will update again soon (will try to put more bells and possibly some more whistles on the next entry)

Rocket
PS just paid one Euro for a coffee while writing this entry, I let the vending machine do its thing while I typed some more only to turn around and find there are cups on the top of the machine which cleverly stop your coffee going back into the machine like mine did…

That title should have a question mark but punctuation on this computer is a law unto itself.Also Everz time I tzpe z I get a y. And visa versa - as zou can see. anyway (getting the hang of it now) after leaving the lovely bedsit I rode onto a place called meppen, Germany. Once again it was without ceremony that I crossed the border - another simple blue sign with the EU flag on it, but again it was also a nice mental boost to cross an international boundary.

There are many reasons why you would stay in meppen for a long time.
For example a gang of youths chain you to a tree somewhere in the woods. Maybe upon arriving in meppen your wife is kidnapped and they tell you not to leave town or else. Or perhaps Aliens destroy every other part of the planet and there is nothing but wasteland apart from in meppen. yes there are many reasons to stay for a long time there but none that applied to Team Piglets mission.

Next it was onto Papenburg. Papenburg was nice (compared to Meppen) but I had to hang around for the Hostel to open which was a bit frustrating.
And then I czcled to a place which I have no way of spelling as the hostel book is upstairs - Bad Zwischeren? (hey I found the Question mark!)
I think. Bad Z…. was actually rather pleasant - A picturesque lake and lots of cafes - not bad at all. I asked the Guy at the hostel why there were so many places that started with the word Bad in Germany (there are loads) and he said it meant they were like retirement towns. So thats why I felt so at home here! (meaning that worthing is like that not that Im old…)

From there it was a reletavily short journey to a place called Brude (I made the Hostel guy laugh with my pronounciation - its brooda not brood) I had found out in advance that it didnt open till 5 and it was nice to be able to saunter along without worrying about getting there on time. Impressed a Turkish Guy in a restaraunt with the 2 words of Turkish I know and the fact that Id been there (he spoke no English) which was about the most exciting thing that happened in Brude.

Another reasonably short hop has brought me to Bremen which is one of the larger Cities in Germany. It was a bit of a culture shock at first - everything seemed really big and busy. Most of the places Ive travelled through have been small rural places where most tourists dont go. But Ive adjusted now and Bremen is a beautiful City with ornate historical buildings and the weather is perfect to wander from place to place soaking up the atmosphere. The only sad thing is there seem to be a lot of homeless people which has not been the case in the smaller places. I guess this goes hand in hand with big cities…

Well It’s been a while. How have you been?
So to catch up then… sorry its a lot of reading maybe take breaks after each day and come back???

The road to Arnhem

Cycled from Utrecht to Arnhem which was once again a fair distance for me and the pig.

The change from Utrecht to Arnhem is a dramatic increase in woodlands.
It really reminded me of going to the forest at weekends when I was a kid. Although the woods in Arnhem are far more expansive I used to be much smaller so scale-wise it’s probably about the same…
Shared my room with a DJ from Sweden, who had just come from a 24 hour party in Amsterdam, then the next night with some italians who were happy to turn the light on after going out till late and then again at 6am when they left… lucky I have such a strong ‘chen’ (see previous post)

Also saw the famous bridge that featured in many films and war series (such as Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan). The second world war has been a bit of a theme as I’ve ridden across Europe through places such as arnhem and Dunkirk. I don’t feel my site is the right place to try and be deep and meaningful and it would be impossible for me to say anything new on the subject anyway. However I offer this story by way of acknowledgement to that troubled history…

When I was working in an ex-servicemens home (before I achieved my life long dream of selling insurance) I grew dreadlocks.
Stop laughing at the back I was young and foolish.
Anyway after my employers got over the shock they told me I would have to wear a white catering hair net style hat. Seriously stop laughing at the back.
So the residents rarely if ever saw my hair. Those that did would often tease me about my chosen style of folic arrangement. As such I was generally pretty defensive when it came to my hair.
With this in mind when one of the holiday residents made the comment “I suppose you’ve got long hair under that hat”
I replied “yeah, I’m afraid so…”. He stopped unpacking his stuff from his taxi turned to me and said “don’t be be apologetic, we fought a war so you could have long hair.”

A dark day for the pig and it’s master

Then I rode to um…. niverjen???(don’t have anything with the name written on it to hand sorry) And it was a horrible day. Apart from the fact that like most cities Arnhem acted as a gravity well (for me anyway) and after getting up early to check my bank (more boring money problems that I won’t bore you with) I lost all the extra time to circling the city while my GPS seemed to be laughing at me. Once I finally left the City the ride was a pretty long one which involved many little niggly things that added up to a frustating day.

Examples of these included my first car crash. Don’t panic the car was stationary and the main thing that was hurt was my pride and the Pigs front reflector. And perhaps my chances of having a family.
Let that be a lesson kids - keep your eyes on the road and not on your GPS.
Another Example (again caused by my GPS) was when I turned onto a road which clearly wasn’t designed for bikes of any kind let alone 16″ wheeled fold ups. Of course the one time I’ve done this in the hundreds of miles ridden there was a police car on hand to witness my idiocy. Now as I’ve noted before my Dutch isn’t great but I got the feeling the police man was saying something like “hey there man, loooove the bike but maybe you’d feel safer on that cycle path thats literally a couple of feet from the very busy road your currently situated on” with maybe a slightly stronger tone.

So the day finished with me exausted and in a bad mood in a place I couldn’t pronounce. As I walked to get some dinner A magpie landed on a nearby fence, and I couldn’t stop myself from saying aloud “your late….”

In sight of the border - Denekamp

After a bit of a chilled out evening with a Dutch cyclist who was pretty cool (I have to say that as he may be reading this!) and another rest day I felt in better spirits and cycled onto a place called Denekamp which is only a couple of miles from the German border. There was no hostel here so I saught out a B and B which had a friendly woman running it who made me a pot of coffee and brought some cake, it was nice to relax in the guests lounge watching a bit of telly and having a bit of luxury after my recent nightmare day.

well that doesn’t bring us up to date yet but my internet time is running out and your probably bored of reading my ramblings by now, so for the time being I’ll sign off.

Rocket
PS I#m currently on my way to Hude (Germany)